This Is Trash!
Min Tae-yeon glared at him fiercely.
Like a pig.
“A pig? A piiiiig?”
Hyun-seo looked as if he wanted to bite his own tongue off at the long, drawn-out “pig” that bounced back at him.
“Well. I wonder if I said that. Sometimes I don’t even know what I’m saying. It’s a slip of the tongue, I suppose. Something like that.”
“That’s not called a slip of the tongue. It’s called inconsiderate.”
“Huh? Inconsiderate?”
Hyun-seo raised his eyebrows, and Min Tae-yeon replied in the same businesslike tone she used at work.
“As you said, I’ll just ignore it as a slip of the tongue.”
Hyun-seo let out a small sigh.
Good. It could have been worse. If he could simply brush off the word “pig” as “inconsiderate” without having to take it back, that was actually a win. He nodded.
It was an unspoken agreement between the two of them.
Hyun-seo immediately changed the subject.
“I’ve been noticing a lot of food you’ve been staring at since we got here, Director. Are you going to eat it all? Corn, squid, tteokbokki. Am I right?”
“Eh? How did you know?”
Tae-yeon had been watching the food ever since they arrived. She had no idea how many street foods she had missed while living at home. She was keeping such close track. It was the eye of Choi Hyun-seo.
At the company, his sharp gaze was legendary. That his eyes were now fixed on her felt… oddly touching.
“I’ll get you some. What do you want to eat now?”
“Tteokbokki.”
“I knew it. I’ve been watching the tteokbokki side the whole time.”
Hyun-seo grabbed a skewer of tteokbokki and eomuk from the table.
“While I was out playing, how were you doing at home? Trying to act like Yun-woo’s mom by eating only healthy snacks?”
“What on earth are you saying? I was always—”
“You always liked this sort of thing.”
Min Tae-yeon’s lips formed a perfect O. That was true. Even while working, she had eaten tteokbokki during lunch breaks many times.
“I ate tteokbokki all the time at the company. There’s a narrow alley right in front of the headquarters building. Once you step inside—”
“I know. The tteokbokki place.”
“How?”
Tae-yeon’s eyes widened in surprise.
“I’ve been watching you from the very first day I arrived here.”
“How do you know?”
“From the very beginning? Well… I suppose… Do I have to tell you? The first time I saw you, I was sitting in the car and saw you smiling at yourself in the window like it was a mirror. Who were you trying to impress, I wonder?”
“In the car?”
She didn’t remember. That meant it wasn’t the night of their first encounter, the one-night stand. At least not in the way she had thought.
“Is that true? So on that night I was the one you had the one-night stand with? You saw me before that?”
Hyun-seo nodded.
“I saw you at the wine bar first.”
“So I was the one you had the one-night stand with after seeing I worked at Miwoo F&C?”
Hyun-seo nodded, and Tae-yeon’s mouth fell open.
“I had no idea…”
What had he thought of the subordinate who proposed a one-night stand to the director?
“Was it that shocking? I took you to the wine bar again after the one-night stand. Then I quit.”
Yes. The night of their one-night stand had been the last day of her part-time job.
“You came back to see me?”
“Maybe I did.”
His tone was completely emotionless. What thoughts was he having right now? Tae-yeon set her skewer down and looked at him again.
“Why?”
“Huh? What?”
Choi Hyun-seo hadn’t understood her question exactly.
“I came to see you. At the wine bar. But why?”
“So why? Why did you come see me? Did you miss me? Were you thinking of me? Did it make you happy? Were you struck by lightning?”
Hyun-seo turned his gaze away from her honest question, but she asked again.
“So why never pretended to know you at the company?”
There had never been an opportunity. He had gone back to the wine bar and still hadn’t found her. Then, after that, he had tried to meet her again at the company. He had planned to call her and ask, “Are you the man I had the one-night stand with?” But the day that question might have been answered, her brother died.
And from then on, it was impossible to go back to the way things were. Meeting her, dreaming of sweet romance— that had never been possible. She herself had been responsible for her brother’s death.
If she hadn’t been there, her brother would have become the eldest son of Miwoo Group and stood even higher than he did now. He would have lived a proud, rebellious life with power and influence. That sudden thought had stabbed at Hyun-seo’s conscience.
Hyun-seo let his coldness settle completely and answered flatly.
“There was no choice. It couldn’t be helped.”
“What happened?”
“I told you not to ask too many questions.”
“Is this a contract clause? Unnecessary question. Then why did we come to the amusement park? This has nothing to do with the contract. We didn’t agree to come to the amusement park together. So why am I ‘Director’ here?”
Min Tae-yeon’s sudden, sharp tone made Hyun-seo’s face freeze.
“You’re right. I took you to the amusement park. Was I too forward?”
“No. We should have been forward from the beginning. We should have said it straight out. That you had gone back to the wine bar because you wanted to see me again. That you already knew I worked at the company.”
Tae-yeon forced her lips from curling up. It didn’t matter that he had asked her out again without caring. It was unbelievable. In the end, Choi Hyun-seo had been interested in Min Tae-yeon. He had wanted to see her again after the one-night stand.
For Tae-yeon, the fact itself was more important than whatever had happened afterward. When her mood brightened, Hyun-seo looked slightly taken aback.
“I don’t know how you’re taking this, but…”
“I understand perfectly. You liked me and found me attractive. That’s why you came looking. But something came up and you couldn’t find me. After that, you told me the woman you loved ended up pregnant with Yun-woo. So was I the other woman?”
Hyun-seo couldn’t answer immediately.
Was that how it had happened?
“Director, if you calculate the dates, around the time Yun-woo was born, I called you. At that point Yun-woo was already seven months old, so it fits perfectly! What do you mean? Oh, I must have liked you, so you came looking, but your girlfriend was already pregnant. That’s why you couldn’t find me, and then, when she was dying of cancer, you were looking for someone to be Yun-woo’s mother. That’s why you called me, the one you had some liking for?”
Hyun-seo clamped his mouth shut. According to her story, he really was human trash.
What kind of man was he to Min Tae-yeon?
“No, that’s not how it went. If that’s the case, what does that make me?”
“What does it make me? Complete trash. Yes. When you think about it, that’s exactly how it happened. How could that be possible?”
Her eyes burned with fire, and Hyun-seo had nothing to say. But he didn’t feel good about the situation at all.
“Even so, what does it matter? Why does that matter? This is about our contract. It’s clearly stated in the contract, so if we twist the story like that… fine. Think however you want. Imagination is free.”
Imagination? That one word brought false hope crashing down again.
“So my words were wrong?”
There seemed to be no escape route no matter how he looked at it. He had told her from the beginning not to ask anything, yet here they were, stuck in this mess.
“I have nothing to say. Let’s just enjoy it.”
“Eh?”
“What’s so important about that? The important thing is that right now I’m at the amusement park with you, Min Tae-yeon. Exactly as you said in your contract, I brought you here because you wanted to eat fast food at the amusement park. That’s why we’re here together right now.”
What was he saying?
Min Tae-yeon stared blankly at him. Was this a confession?
But she couldn’t push any further. She bowed her head, and a napkin was right there.
“You keep smearing food on your face while eating. Tteokbokki got on your lips.”
Hyun-seo wiped her lips with the napkin. Tae-yeon’s cheeks grew hot without her realizing. She knew he was a bad man, yet this bad man kept shaking her and digging deeper. Hyun-seo held out his hand to the dazed Tae-yeon.
“You wanted to ride the rides, right? Let’s go. What do you want to ride?”
“I want to ride.”
She wanted to ride with this bad man. A very bad man. But right now…
“That one.”
Tae-yeon pointed at the Viking ride. Seeing the screams of people around them, Hyun-seo chuckled.
“You want to ride that? Not even for kids.”
“You have to go to the very end. The very end!”
“Do whatever you want. Not even for kids, this kind of thing…”
Tae-yeon happily climbed aboard, and Hyun-seo followed with a nonchalant expression.